Nation / IN BRIEF : MARYLAND

NTSB Hearings on Flight 800 End

A federal hearing into the crash of TWA Flight 800 ended with victims' families expressing satisfaction with the scope of the investigation and analysts agreeing that a less volatile fuel should be considered for passenger planes. The chief suspect in the disaster is a combination of events involving damaged wires and corrosion on a fuel measuring rod that could have introduced a spark or flame into the center fuel tank. The tank was virtually empty and the vapors in it heated up as the plane sat on the runway on a hot day waiting to take off. "We have the smoking gun," said Jose Cramedes of France, who lost his 15-year-old son, Daniel, in the crash.